Cinephilia: Opening This Week

More Oscar con­tenders hit our screens this week­end. Gus Van Sant’s biop­ic of the first openly gay elec­ted politi­cian in the USA, Milk opens today at Read­ings, Pent­house and Light­house Petone. Sean Penn plays San Fran­cisco city super­visor Har­vey Milk who was assas­sin­ated by fel­low city offi­cial Dan White in 1978. Penn is sup­por­ted by Josh Brolin (No Coun­try for Old Men), Emile Hirsch (Into the Willd) and James Franco (Pine­apple Express).

I got to see Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire last Fri­day at the Embassy - if it does­n’t romp home with the best pic­ture Oscar I’ll be very sur­prised. Kin­et­ic, col­our­ful and heart­felt, it’s an object of great beauty. Slum­dog is also play­ing Read­ings, Pent­house and Light­house Petone.

[The rest of this week’s releases – and there’s heaps – after the jump]

The Para­mount is open­ing three more wee-indie bat­tle­rs this week­end: Kiwi micro-budget fea­ture The Map Read­er stars Rebecca Gib­ney and is set around the pic­tur­esque Kaipara Har­bour. It’s a com­ing-of-age tale and it isn’t too chal­len­ging. The second Para­mount open­ing today is Sparkle, a Brit­ish com­edy fea­tur­ing Bob Hoskins and Stock­ard Chan­ning (“The West Wing”).

When Swedish vam­pire drama Let the Right One In played at the Fest­iv­al last year I slept through some import­ant scenes and wokeup  unmoved. Fur­ther dis­cus­sion with people who saw the whole thing prompt me to look at it again this week­end: Para­mount exclus­ive.

Tom Cruise’s long-awaited new drama Valkyrie is about the plot to assas­sin­ate Hitler in 1944 and, in addi­tion to Cruise, there’s a parade of great tal­ent on dis­play includ­ing Bill Nighy, Ken­neth Branagh and Eddie Izzard. Read­ings, Empire, Pent­house and Sky City Queens­gate.

Finally in a busy hol­i­day week, Sex Drive is a gross-out teen sex com­edy boast­ing a cast fea­tur­ing nobody you’ve ever heard of. Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate.

Mean­while at the Film Archive the Holo­caust doc­u­ment­ary Les Sur­vivants gets anoth­er run out on Sat­urday at 7.00pm and the excel­lent fun Scar­fies by the Sarkies broth­ers plays next Wed­nes­day, at the same time as the French Film Fest­iv­al has its gala at the Embassy.

Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire and The Map Read­er were reviewed in this week’s Cap­it­al Times (and on Funer­als & Snakes tonight), the rest will appear in next Wed­nes­day’s edi­tion (and online soon after).